Oldfield School governors' chief Julie Cope: 'We will battle on'

The chairman of governors at Bath’s beleaguered Oldfield School says it will battle through a crisis which has seen its ways of working questioned from all sides.

Defiant Julie Cope says in a letter to The Bath Chronicle - which has led the way in revealing the strength of concern over the way the academy is run - that all the matters currently being looked at by senior Department for Education officials ‘can be resolved’.

A DfE team is due to wrap up a three-day visit to the Kelston Road school today as governors whose relationship with head Kim Sparling has been described as too cosy in an official Ofsted report prepare to meet.

The DfE’s Education Funding Agency has been poring over information submitted as part of a three-day Ofsted inspection of the school last December, but never published because it lay outside the inspection body’s remit.

The Ofsted delegation had written a highly critical nine-page report which has now been posted on the website of the national charity Fair Play for Children, which has rejected overtures from Ofsted and Mrs Cope to take it down.

This week’s DfE visit is particularly reviewing the relationship between the governors and Mrs Sparling, with concern that complaints, grievances and whistleblowing incidents are not taken seriously enough by the board.

Bath MP Don Foster and B&NES Council have both expressed serious worries about the school, which opted out of local authority control to become an academy in 2011.

The Chronicle is unable to reveal the nature of the criticisms in the unpublished Ofsted report because it has no legally privileged status, meaning reporting the contents could expose us to a libel action.

In her letter Mrs Cope, whose letter is just from her and not the board of governors as a whole, says that this report has ‘no official status.’

The Chronicle understands that a governors’ meeting is scheduled for today at which there is likely to be the most serious questioning yet about the challenges facing the school.

Vice-chair Duncan Giles has already stepped down from that role, although he remains on the board, because of his concerns at the school’s handling of recent issues.

Other governors say they have found out more from the Chronicle’s coverage of events at the school than they have from official sources.

Letter from chair of governors Julie Cope

Over the last few weeks the Bath Chronicle has published a series of stories concerning our school, following on from an Ofsted inspection.

With so much coverage having been given from other perspectives, I trust that my letter will be published unchanged and in full.

Can I say from the start that these speculative stories fuelling rumour and speculation have been unsettling and upsetting for all those concerned with the welfare and progress of our students.

Until Ofsted published its final report we have been in no position to respond on this matter. Any report in draft form is exactly what it says: a draft with no official status and which has now been superseded by the final, definitive version, a letter.

Ofsted has now published the results of its inspection and these are freely available on its website and on ours.

Many positive comments were made in the letter, not least that our students “show outstanding attitudes to learning”, “show respect to their teachers” and that “relationships across the school are strong”. Moreover, only “a very small amount of poor behaviour was observed”.

There were several constructive suggestions made on improving our policies and procedures, which have now been implemented. An external review of governance was also made a priority, and we are now working hard towards this. The report also notes that several complaints have been passed to the Department of Education for further consideration, but these did not form part of the inspection’s remit.

We are confident that all these matters can be resolved.

Oldfield’s proud record of being graded as an “outstanding” school is unchanged. To achieve that status means we are outstanding in all categories: achievement, teaching, behaviour and leadership and management.

Everyone who knows the history of Oldfield School will be aware that we have had to fight a number of battles - not least to prevent closure by the local authority. We have fought and won all those battles; and now, in part assisted by our new academy status, we have a school with excellent facilities, superb staff, supportive parents and hard-working, motivated pupils.

I am sure there will be those who disagree with our approach or have a problem with our success, but our primary concern is for our students.

We look forward to continuing to be a school that the Bath community can be proud of.

Aside from the clear safeguarding issue around the registers there is also another potential problem with this. If a child goes missing and is not marked as absent then it will skew the schools absence figures. Absence is something that Ofsted take very seriously and impacts on the rating given. But, if registration is apparently this slapdash, how can anyone be sure that the school data is correct and accurate? I believe that correct completion of school registers is a legal requirement.
I hope this is an issue that will be escalated accordingly.

The last boss I had a serious disagreement with Francine was when I was 17. I suggested he did it himself and walked out. . The only boss I've had since I was about 19 or 20 is my dear wife. . 'Bully' is the latest buzz word taking over from 'Xenophobe' and the 60's elderly men are now the target of the PC brigade as youthful regrets are being revenged.

Charlespk, the issue I was raising was not the breakdown of society over the last few decades, but a safeguarding issue where an unwell child of 11 or 12 had been able to leave school premises alone during the school day, without the school's knowledge. This child was not playing truant, he/she was ill and it obviously seemed a good idea to them at the time to return home and go to bed.
The questions that need to be asked of this so say "outstanding" academy are (1) Why did the school not know the child had left the premises? and if they did (presumably a register is taken at the start of every lesson would have indicated that he/she was absent) why was this not followed up as a matter of urgency? (2) Why did this child not feel able to visit the school nurse or a teacher? (3) What if god forbid there had been a fire at the school, presumably he/she was on the register at the start of the school day so then would have been presumed still inside when the buildings were evacuated. Registers are taken not purely to confirm attendance or otherwise, but to also be used in an emergency situation where all persons need to be accounted for.
As I said before, this is a major safeguarding issue and bizarrely comes in the week when the DofE are in the school, you couldn't make it up!

The reaction of KS and her tame governors is worrying, all about self-interest, protecting their empire and suppressing the report, rather than accepting the criticism and making the school a better place to work and learn.